Coming in just over a year after the PDPU, an industry-government initiative to create talent pool for the energy field, completed pre-feasibility studies in the geothermal energy sector, it was around 2.30 a.m. on Thursday when hot water up to 50 degrees Celsius to 55 degrees Celsius temperature started gushing out of the 1,000-foot deep borewell and continued to flow.

Anirbid Sircar, the university’s director, told IANS, “hot water gushed out from the well at an unexpected velocity of five litres a second."

The hot water produced from the well would be used for power generation using a technique termed as Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), he said.